072620c

El Dorado

We can’t afford to store each kind of life,

Nor yet the code that generates the beasts,

A trillion trillion suns within our reach,

Their planets crawl with living things whose strife,

Engenders kinds and more that grow and move,

Uncountable by any such as we,

So genes we snip and hope the cosmos prove,

Our sampling strategy be error free.

But refuges are stuffed with creatures rare,

Their healing traits will surely pass the test,

Genomics, their odd chemistries, suggests,

Host biologic jewels beyond compare,

Has any place in nature these begot?

Such pearls we’ve sought, but we have found them not.